I am a fifth year law student, starting my law firm career in about 3 months. I have heard a lot of negative things about law firms on this forum lately. The optimist in me doesn't want to believe that all is so bad at law firms.
Can we please narrate the good things about law firms? Hopefully, these experiences along with the previous thread will perhaps give us a better and balanced perspective about law firms.
Hope and positivity, Curiously on LI since 2018 Curious kidd
Money. Low entry barrier. Basic knowledge of English, and ability to handle search engines would suffice. Almost no knowledge of law required. Less need to carry out daily chores, since you won't be having a personal life outside work.
But what can you pivot into after ten years at a law firm. Many ships have sailed in terms of making a massive career switch. And does the usual exit to an in house role actually make any difference in terms of work hours / culture etc ?
1. Money. Especially as you rise higher in the ranks.
2. If you are lucky, you will meet some nice seniors and also people who will prove to be true friends. I know I have found a few and I am thankful for that.
3. It will give you an education by exposing you to different kinds of people and situations. You will be forced out of your echo-chamber surely.
4. It is no different from life really. It is difficult, challenging, not always a meritocracy and at the end, you have to decide what you want to make of it, including walking away when needed.
Other than the big pay-cheque and bragging rights, there are some less celebrated benefits as well. For one, while the initial years can be pretty rough, if you find the right practice area and team, it can be smooth sailing thereafter. Secondly, you can always quit after becoming partner and pursue your dreams with a full bank account. That kind of progress takes decades in any other industry and just 10 years in a law firm. Also, no other industry ever offers actual equity if you stay put for long enough.
Yes your personal life will take a hit, as will your health and sanity for the most part, but some lawyers do find a way to get a handle on it and manage a healthy balance.
1. Money 2. Adrenalin high especially when you like the work you do. 3. Lifelong friends (hopefully!) from within the firm because you spend so much time with them anyway everyday. 4. Acquisition of life skills 5. Exposure to high quality of people from all around 6. Introduction to the finer things in life unless you were born into it already 7. Real time training in soft skills and hard skills 8. Money
7 is actually true. Associates at a very young are exposed to time management, coherent drafting and articulation, handling incredibly complex matters with limited expertise (i.e., the art of bullshitting) and have to deliver legal counsel that can alter the course of a business.
All of that is actually available in litigation more, and several other legal professions at least equally. Indian law firms do not have a monopoly in it. In fact, the number of partners in Indian law firms who are completely lacking in leadership and soft skills boggles one's imagination.
I've been at a law firm for the past 4 years now. Few positives based on my experience below:
1. You get to meet so many clients, counterparties etc. who are just genuinely smart, including graduates from ISBs, IIMs, IITs etc. on a regular basis. Some of the clients I work with are Harvard graduates too. I'm not saying this doesn't happen as a litigating lawyer or in any other profession, but I feel it happens more regularly when you do transactional work.
2. While some people are criticizing the money, think about it from the perspective that at the age of 28-29, you can have bought a decent car, spent your 20-25 days of annual leave every year travelling to new places (without too many budgetary constraints) and still have have significant savings. Generally, you are also financially secure enough to quit and try something else (with the safety net of coming back to a law firm if it doesn't work out) as opposed to litigation or most other professions.
3. I work with a team that encourages us to work efficiently, wrap up and head home early. Admittedly, we do end up working past midnight about 2-3 days in a week on average. But the point is- I spend at least 8-10 hours of my day applying 100% of my mind and my concentration. A lot of my batchmates that have chosen litigation as their career end up waiting around courts for a significant part of their day. By their own admission, their actual productive hours commence around 5PM in the evening once they are back from court. Please don't get me wrong- I have nothing against litigation. On the contrary, I have immense respect for the effort that litigators have to put in to rise up the ranks as well as all the struggles that they have to endure, but I feel that the system is just inefficient and it makes your day look unproductive.
I'm not saying there are no disadvantages to working in a law firm- there are several. But since the thread is about advantages, these are three important ones according to me. Also, law firms are not horrible, trust me! As many on this thread have already pointed out, you just need the right team and colleagues to build your career with.
Lastly, I know a fair number of people who have quit their careers at the mid level in big corporate law firms and decided to start litigating/ following other pursuits. How many litigators can you name who have transitioned into being transactional lawyers in the last few years? While skill wise, transactional work is not rocket science, the reality is that it is just difficult to get a job in a corporate team at a SAM or a CAM after 3-4 years as a litigator.
Worked at 3 Tier 1s in seven years, I have never encountered anyone who's going off on 25 day leaves, even spread out across the year. Definitely not the norm in any tier 1.
You have to schedule it right, between deals and mixing long weekends, etc. I managed three long holidays in 2019 - the good year, excluding regular weekends. Although, there are some people across teams who fail to manage this. Think you will find lot of people like me if you put your head up though. Life is short, #shootyourshot
There are also a bunch of helpful seniors in law firms who are willing to act as mentors to law students aspiring to join a law firm. We have had lawyers from AZB, SAM,CAM, KCO reach out to us. The LI thread for the mentoring initiative is here: https://www.legallyindia.com/convos/topic/160768-Mentors-needed#comments
I want to understand the base pay cry. In any case, each year experience addition brings fairly large increments till you make Partner. Please help me understand the worry on base pay.
I have been working mainly with law firms and I find the following advantages
(i) The money is good if not great; (ii) Corporate law is very challenging intellectually and transactions are brilliant to work on; and (iii) The people you interact with are intelligent.
Contrary to what they say on Legally India no one is nice. But who are these days? Its a lawyer eat lawyer world ( sauce on the side, please)
Half of the law firm people these days certainly do not appear to be intelligent based on the opinions they write. I speak as someone who get briefed by those people on a regular basis.
1. I had the quickest promotion to Jet Platinum, Kingfisher Platinum and then Vistara Platinum (in post-COVID world, we will probably only clock Zoom hours). 2. I could finally afford some paintings I only saw in Coffee-table books of Taj Hotels. 3. I was able to gift myself trips to Morocco, France, Japan and Cuba (just some of the destinations that I always wanted to visit). 4. I worked on deals that made the business magazines, I actually contributed to these deals in a meaningful way which gave me real professional satisfaction. 5. I met my husband (well, and an ex-boyfriend) at my work place. 6. I was able to inspire two family members to take up law and now they are studying in two different NLUs. 7. I genuinely enjoy the office parties (rather I did as I haven't been to one for a couple of years). They are real fun. 8. I have been in awe of few of my clients. Such smart people and such business acumen. Getting to know them and witnessing the way they run their businesses is a real privilege. 9. I have developed a reasonable understanding of balance sheet and all such financial matters. This was never taught to me in college. This is something I have learnt thanks to my gradual learning and understanding of the commercial aspects of transactions. 10. I have been invited to speak at different gatherings but the sweetest part was going back to my college and delivering a speech there and getting enthusiastic questions from the present students. I thought I did inspire some pupils for some time (however short) for sure.
So yes, if you can survive the toughest hours in a law firm, it does throw at you more hours of joy, satisfaction and happiness. Cheers!!
Well, firms do offer certain benefits. But you can never be a VVIP if you join a firm. You will not be as powerful say as IAS officers working in the PMO or as rich as industrialists or for that matter fund managers. You will never be part of the very elite in society like a select few of your clients will be unless you are the managing partner.
That's a bit of a misplaced comparison. The question is not about a career in law vs any other career option. It is about a law career at a law firm as compared to other career options for lawyers.
And none of those people (IAS officer, fund manager, etc.) wouldn't be worth the shoe laces of let's say an international cricketer, a top tennis player or an actor. The grass is always greener on the other side, depends on from where you're looking. There will always be someone with a bigger house and more influence.
Many lawyers clear UPSC. Every year you find so many bright young lawyers clearing civil services and joining the IAS, IFS and IPS. Some lawyers especially in the US go on to head investment banks like Lloyd Blankfein, James Gorman. This is not so true in India but will surely happen in the future. Also, so many litigating lawyers go on become MPs and join the cabinet although many of them are from influential families. Not everyone wants to do repetitive and mundane transactional work for a living.
The biggest issue is the slavish mentality in firms. Imagine everyone from associates to partners has to fill time sheets like a labourer in a factory. They want to extract every bit of utility that they can like a rabid capitalist. Extreme capitalist mentality in law firms is the biggest challenge.
It's all about the money. In a country as impoverished as this, it's a really good thing to have. People make you feel good about yourself because of the money even though you might be crying yourself to sleep.
However, some people also seem to like sophisticated conversation with the shallow people at these firms.
Will slog from Monday to Sunday and on Sunday night, will buy Versace jeans to make myself feel better.
It's really exhausting working at law firms in India. The people in such environments never sleep and take out their anger on you most of the time. The sooner you get out, the better. Very tough to come across a firm that truly values their workers/employees. The culture of law firms has managed to create sleepless, overworked and overburdened people who have no semblance of a normal life for themselves. Speaking from prior experience.
This is a very valid point. I read about lifelong friends and all above, but wondered how. People you meet at law firms, especially the ones who have spent about 3 years or more, are institutionalized. They're rather dull, unimaginative, overanxious and cranky- the typical traits of people who spend 95% of their waking consciousness working/ staring at a laptop/ taking calls. They rarely have the time or interest to have any meaningful hobby or to have a life outside of office, and don't make for interesting company.
Law firms can be a good place to work, but you need to prepare yourself. Make sure you are all set with your personal profile and the law firm's expectations of personal conduct, since there will be times when you will be put in situations that will require some discretion and judgment.
Can we please narrate the good things about law firms? Hopefully, these experiences along with the previous thread will perhaps give us a better and balanced perspective about law firms.
Hope and positivity,
Curiously on LI since 2018
Curious kidd
2. If you are lucky, you will meet some nice seniors and also people who will prove to be true friends. I know I have found a few and I am thankful for that.
3. It will give you an education by exposing you to different kinds of people and situations. You will be forced out of your echo-chamber surely.
4. It is no different from life really. It is difficult, challenging, not always a meritocracy and at the end, you have to decide what you want to make of it, including walking away when needed.
Yes your personal life will take a hit, as will your health and sanity for the most part, but some lawyers do find a way to get a handle on it and manage a healthy balance.
2. Adrenalin high especially when you like the work you do.
3. Lifelong friends (hopefully!) from within the firm because you spend so much time with them anyway everyday.
4. Acquisition of life skills
5. Exposure to high quality of people from all around
6. Introduction to the finer things in life unless you were born into it already
7. Real time training in soft skills and hard skills
8. Money
1. You get to meet so many clients, counterparties etc. who are just genuinely smart, including graduates from ISBs, IIMs, IITs etc. on a regular basis. Some of the clients I work with are Harvard graduates too. I'm not saying this doesn't happen as a litigating lawyer or in any other profession, but I feel it happens more regularly when you do transactional work.
2. While some people are criticizing the money, think about it from the perspective that at the age of 28-29, you can have bought a decent car, spent your 20-25 days of annual leave every year travelling to new places (without too many budgetary constraints) and still have have significant savings. Generally, you are also financially secure enough to quit and try something else (with the safety net of coming back to a law firm if it doesn't work out) as opposed to litigation or most other professions.
3. I work with a team that encourages us to work efficiently, wrap up and head home early. Admittedly, we do end up working past midnight about 2-3 days in a week on average. But the point is- I spend at least 8-10 hours of my day applying 100% of my mind and my concentration. A lot of my batchmates that have chosen litigation as their career end up waiting around courts for a significant part of their day. By their own admission, their actual productive hours commence around 5PM in the evening once they are back from court. Please don't get me wrong- I have nothing against litigation. On the contrary, I have immense respect for the effort that litigators have to put in to rise up the ranks as well as all the struggles that they have to endure, but I feel that the system is just inefficient and it makes your day look unproductive.
I'm not saying there are no disadvantages to working in a law firm- there are several. But since the thread is about advantages, these are three important ones according to me. Also, law firms are not horrible, trust me! As many on this thread have already pointed out, you just need the right team and colleagues to build your career with.
Lastly, I know a fair number of people who have quit their careers at the mid level in big corporate law firms and decided to start litigating/ following other pursuits. How many litigators can you name who have transitioned into being transactional lawyers in the last few years? While skill wise, transactional work is not rocket science, the reality is that it is just difficult to get a job in a corporate team at a SAM or a CAM after 3-4 years as a litigator.
If you wish to sign up as mentor, please drop a mail at lawfirmready@gmail.com
(i) The money is good if not great;
(ii) Corporate law is very challenging intellectually and transactions are brilliant to work on; and
(iii) The people you interact with are intelligent.
Contrary to what they say on Legally India no one is nice. But who are these days? Its a lawyer eat lawyer world ( sauce on the side, please)
1. I had the quickest promotion to Jet Platinum, Kingfisher Platinum and then Vistara Platinum (in post-COVID world, we will probably only clock Zoom hours).
2. I could finally afford some paintings I only saw in Coffee-table books of Taj Hotels.
3. I was able to gift myself trips to Morocco, France, Japan and Cuba (just some of the destinations that I always wanted to visit).
4. I worked on deals that made the business magazines, I actually contributed to these deals in a meaningful way which gave me real professional satisfaction.
5. I met my husband (well, and an ex-boyfriend) at my work place.
6. I was able to inspire two family members to take up law and now they are studying in two different NLUs.
7. I genuinely enjoy the office parties (rather I did as I haven't been to one for a couple of years). They are real fun.
8. I have been in awe of few of my clients. Such smart people and such business acumen. Getting to know them and witnessing the way they run their businesses is a real privilege.
9. I have developed a reasonable understanding of balance sheet and all such financial matters. This was never taught to me in college. This is something I have learnt thanks to my gradual learning and understanding of the commercial aspects of transactions.
10. I have been invited to speak at different gatherings but the sweetest part was going back to my college and delivering a speech there and getting enthusiastic questions from the present students. I thought I did inspire some pupils for some time (however short) for sure.
So yes, if you can survive the toughest hours in a law firm, it does throw at you more hours of joy, satisfaction and happiness. Cheers!!
However, some people also seem to like sophisticated conversation with the shallow people at these firms.
Will slog from Monday to Sunday and on Sunday night, will buy Versace jeans to make myself feel better.